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The company would likely have to retire plants that can’t be relied on to deliver electricity if
the Environmental Protection Agency requires such steep reductions by 2030 in proposed rules to be
unveiled June 2, CEO Nick Akins said Wednesday in an interview.

“We would see that as a particular challenge,” Akins said, adding that such a target would be “
very aggressive.”

The rules, a core part of President Barack Obama’s plan to fight climate change, could
cost the U.S. economy $50 billion a year by forcing more than a third of the
coal-fired power capacity to close by 2030 and eliminate 224,000 jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
said. Supporters predict it will create jobs and lower power bills.

The chamber report “makes unfounded assumptions about the EPA’s upcoming proposal for
common-sense standards to cut the harmful carbon pollution from power plants,” Tom Reynolds, a
spokesman for the EPA, said in an email.

EPA declined to comment on speculation about specific emission reductions that will be proposed
in the draft rule, Liz Purchia, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said yesterday in a telephone
interview.

New carbon limits could save customers $37.4 billion on electric bills in 2020, while creating
more than 274,000 jobs from energy-efficiency investments, according to a report by the Natural
Resources Defense Council. The analysis was based on a proposal by the council to cut greenhouse
gases about 25 percent by 2020 from 2012 levels.

The regulation may give states broad leeway in how to cut emissions and endorse a path that goes
beyond cuts at power plants, three people familiar with the plan said last week.

Power plants release more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. a year, accounting
for more than 40 percent of such emissions. The new rules are anticipated by environmental groups
pressing Obama to make good on a pledge to take bold steps in the effort to reduce the risks of
climate change.